Herald Blogs

The Peacemaker: LA. Gang Wars (10-11 p.m. Thursday. A&E.) - A new reality series follows a gang mediator who works the nighttime streets of South Central Los Angeles, trying to keep the gunfire down to a dull roar. Produced by Law & Order: SVU's Ice-T, a former gangbanger himself.

Miracle on 34th Street (10:15 p.m. Friday. AMC.) - This classic 1947 film starring Natalie Wood as a little girl who doesn't believe in Santa Claus and Edmund Gwenn as a Macy's Santa who's certain he's the real thing is bitingly funny as well as far more profound than its cute plot set-up suggests. It's really a meditation on the nature of faith. Or as Wood's mom tells her: "Faith is believing when common sense tells you not to." This screening is part of a four-day AMC marathon that continues through Monday; every night at 8, the network will screen the colorized version for committed modernists, followed at 10:15 by the original black and white.

When Vince Lombardi came home one evening in 1959 to tell his little daughter that they were leaving New York because he’d gotten a new job coaching a football team in Green Bay, Wis., she was skeptical. “Where’s Wisconsin?’ she demanded.

Lombardi pointed out the state on an atlas, but the girl was still suspicious: “Where’s Green Bay?” Lombardi, after searching for several minutes, admitted it wasn’t on the map. “When I am done,” he promised her, “it will be on that map.”

The story of the football dynasty Lombardi built on Wisconsin tundra so bleak it was known as the NFL’s Siberia is told in one of a pair of television documentaries airing Saturday night. Taken together, they’re a reminder that — for better and sometimes for much, much worse — big stories sometimes come from small, obscure places.

The more heartening of the two is Lombardi, HBO’s biography of the coach who is at once the most revered and the least understood in NFL history. CNN’s documentary Taliban, on the other hand, is a bleak hour-long report from behind enemy lines in Afghanistan, a bitterly ironic reminder of how thoroughly inside-out the world has turned over the past decade. Read my review of both documentaries in Saturday's Miami Herald.

TNT is shutting down the Kyra Sedgwick cop drama The Closer after the upcoming season, the show's seventh. Though where the network thinks it will find another show that pulls in six million or so viewers a week is not so obvious to me.

Fidel Castro, Meyer Lansky, Frank Sinatra, the CIA and the Bay of Pigs invasion force, all coming to a TV set near you! My Miami Herald pal Hanna Sampson reports that Starz has greenlit a drama series called Magic City set in Miami Beach at the end of the 1950s, with conspiracies whirling every which way. Starz says it's still thinking about where the series will be shot, which is almost certainly networkspeak for "Long Beach," along with CSI: Miamiand all the other South Florida expats.

Wednesday night is television’s equivalent of the climactic moment of It’s A Wonderful Life, in which Jimmy Stewart discovers that his Norman Rockwellian little hometown of Bedford has turned into the sinister Potterville, where Christmas has been eclipsed by strip joints and pawn shops. In our case, Linus, Snoopy, Rudolph and the ordinary early-December Christmas-special gang have been body-snatched by shows about dope and hookers. Coming next: The North Pole — Santa’s hellish sweatshop for elves.

In choosing between the night’s documentaries on marijuana and prostitutes, the viewer will definitely want to just say yes to drugs. CNBC’s Marijuana USA is a crisp, informative report on America’s creeping legalization of reefer in the guise of medical marijuana. Read my full review of Marijuana USA and Investigation Discovery's Hookers: Saved On The Strip in Wednesday's Miami Herald.

At the other end of the basic-cable spectrum, FX's utterly entrancing private-eye show Terrierswas canceled on Monday, less than a week after the season finale. Wanna know why? Here are four other series FX canceled for low ratings: Dirt, with an average audience of 3.7 million viewers; The Riches, 3 million; Over There, 2.9 million; and Damages, 2.4 million. Terriers brought in just 1.6 million -- that is, it could have doubledits audience and still not reached FX's survival threshold.

How much does America love zombies? Like, a steaming gut-bucketful. AMC's season finale of The Walking DeadSunday night pulled in six million viewers, a staggering number for basic cable that doesn't even include the 2.1 million extra who tuned in for the 11 p.m. rerun. The numbers are even more impressive in the 18-to-49 age demo. Over the six-episode season, The Walking Dead had an average demo audience of 3.5 million, the biggest of any basic-cable drama ever. Those stinking corpses will be back for a second season -- 13 episodes this time -- next Halloween.

Men of a Certain Age (10 p.m. Monday, TNT) A surprise hit about three men in middle-age meltdown returns for a second season. Ray Romano, Scott Bakula and Andre Braugher star as a trio under siege by various combinations of disappointed parents, tyrannical bosses, irate spouses, vengeful girlfriends and contemptuous children.

Home Alone 2: Lost In New York (8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Disney Family) This 1992 comedy stars Macaulay Culkin as a kid marooned alone in New York over Christmas. But the real reason to watch is the hilarious smack down of South Florida, where his family finds itself trapped by torrential rains in a crummy motel where the only thing to do is watch It's A Wonderful Life dubbed into Spanish. Miami, see it like a native!

Marijuana USA (9 p.m. Wednesday, CNBC) As this documentary shows, the United States seems to be legalizing marijuana in slow motion as state after state OKs it for "medical usage," which often seems to be indistinguishable from "getting-stoned-and-having-the-munchies'' usage. The feds are not amused.

Meet Me In St. Louis (8 p.m. Saturday, Turner Classic Movies) You gotta have a hard heart -- really hard -- not to tear up a bit when Judy Garland comforts her melancholy little sister Margaret O'Brien by singing Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas in this 1944 comedy. Bonus: It's introduced by Liza Minnelli.

Taliban (8 p.m. Saturday, CNN) Norwegian reporter Paul Refsdal, who has spent more time behind the Taliban lines in Afghanistan than any other Western reporter, shares videos and insights with CNN anchor Anderson Cooper.

Lombardi (8 p.m. Saturday, HBO) A biographical documentary on the legendary Green Bay Packers coach who won the first two Super Bowls and immortalized the line: "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing."